Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
John 11. 25-26
And because of this, we are in the world, with hope. Wishing you and yours a happy, peace-filled and joyous Easter.
Happy Good Friday everyone. Hope you’re enjoying the Easter Weekend. It feels good to be celebrating the second Easter after the covid debacle. It’s been a roller-coaster with changes in leadership all over the world, the release of the WhatsApp message detailing the massive discrepancy between the fear-fest the populace was subjected to and the reality of the actual scientific facts, and of course the royal family shenanigans. If you haven’t read the cabinet WhatsApp messages, you should. They are a doozy but beware, you might need anger management sessions afterwards.
Unstable banks, unstable governments, unstable heads of state. The net effect on the human race? Anxiety. If you work in close contact with lots of people or are in a customer-facing role, you know what I’m talking about. Throw in the cost of living crisis, and the fact that most of us go about our business with a smile on our faces (mostly!) says a lot about the resilience of the human spirit. Contemplating all this on Good Friday with its message of the possibility of redemption and the virtues of self-sacrifice led me to wondering about the ways in which we all try to cope.
I have been a practising Christian as far back as I can remember and have believed that I have God’s protection all my life. I do get anxious and I do worry, and like everyone else, I don’t know what the future holds. However, I also always have the thought that there is somewhere to go for help, and that there is a bright and certain hope for the future, both now and after death. There is more, and there is a purpose for my life. It is impossible to imagine what life feels like to be in the world, without hope.
My atheist/agnostic friends tell me that is all pie-in-the-sky, and maybe they are right, and maybe they are wrong. But my faith sustains me, and having survived earthquake, flood and fire, I know in whom I have believed and God has never let me down. Hence this love letter to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away all the sins of the World. So, wherever you are today, believer or not, I pray that you can hold fast to what is true and that no matter how dire your circumstances, be able to always look towards the Light. I leave you with a super-bouncy rendition of My Lighthouse. Have a good one.
Another week on our lovely planet. It’s been really odd seeing how everything seems to be speeding up. I suspect most people have a sense of this, even if we can’t quite quantify the feeling. In the UK we’ve of course had a coup d’etat in all but name. My guess is that Boris wasn’t down with whatever is planned for us next, so he had to go. Spoiler alert – if you want to go abroad, I’d do it before September.
Not that Boris was on the side of the angels by any means but it seems to me that his heart wasn’t really in it. Essentially, he’s the type of person who fancies being king of the world but whose sense of humour or irony, not to mention sloth, would always prevent him from ruthlessly crushing his enemies. So goodbye Boris, and good luck to us all. I guess the next incumbent is going to be someone who’s all in – don’t you just want to dance a jig at the prospect? Remember, it doesn’t matter who you vote for – the government always gets in. Nil desperandum, friends. For greater is He who is in us then he who is in the world. And it doesn’t matter if you believe that truth or not, the best part of truth is that it’s always true, as Kamala Harris might very well say 🙂
What really caught my imagination this week wasn’t British political shenanigans but the Georgia guidestones. If you’ve never heard of them, GIYF. They were blown up this week by person or persons unknown but I’ve always regarded them with astonishment. Bad enough that someone might write this hate letter to the human race – to carve it in stone and display it as a manifesto of malevolence is something else. To quote Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
The first guideline proposes maintaining the human population at 500 million ‘in perpetual balance with nature’, whatever that may mean. To put that in perspective for you, the combined population of the USA and Nigeria is more than 500 million. Everyone else is dead – all Finns, Estonians, Kenyans, Latvians, Congolese, Ghanains, Australians, Arabs of all nations, Indians, Chinese, etc etc Everyone you know or have ever met unless they are a citizen of those two countries is dead. All citizens of the 191 other countries, poof, gone.In fact you’d have to kill some citizens of the surviving countries to bring the number down to 500 million. A brave new world indeed, who wouldn’t wish to live in lonely splendour in this new Eden?
And just in case you really hate Arabs or Americans or whatever and would love to see them decimated, let me tell you – that 500 million? You’re not on that list. Your parents, children, neighbours, friends, none of them are on that list. Stop reading this and go to your local park/mall/market – nobody you meet will be on that list, they’re all dead. And how do we maintain that magic number – think about it. If you produce child number 500 million and 1 in this new Eden because you’ve had twins, what happens next? That’s a bit of a cheat – in new Eden, reproductive rights will only apply to the chosen and all babies will be gestated in incubators before being sent to the state nurseries so no need to worry!
Yeah, but sounds like a good idea when you think about it, you say. What about overpopulation, you say? For this, you need a trusty calculator. Forget that old chestnut about Texas and fitting in the world population. Give yourself some leeway, use the North and South American continents and then factor in that some of those people will make up families that can combine their allocated area. It’s not really cramped, is it? And you still have another five empty continents that you can dedicate to agriculture and commerce. To quote Gandhi, “There is enough [land, in this case] for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.”
So, I don’t despair. Two reasons, our side wins – it’s written and it can’t be shaken so hurrah for humanity. And secondly, people are out there today, living their lives, having a drink with friends, enjoying their families, some at the beach, some at home, some in the garden etc etc. We are never in the world, without hope. As long as the beautiful Earth stands, insane festivals like the Tomato festival in Spain go on, and human hearts are filled with love and compassion, all will be well. All the images below are of Nigeria, barring the Spanish tomato festival photo. Those are some of the resources the government is squandering through neglect, but that’s a story for another day. Here endeth the sermon. It’s a beautiful world that is full of beautiful people and we are to be valued above rubies and precious stones. Have a good one.
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Hi everyone, sorry I’ve been AWOL for a while but I’ve been a busy worker bee behind the scenes. I went to Nigeria for my brother’s wedding which was truly epic. The usual one week extravaganza. Let’s put it this way, I’ve lost my voice. In other news, AlaraApothecary has a double page feature in Somerset Living magagine which is amazing. The editor Jessica and her team have been so wonderful: all this has been cooking since February. I am so honoured that they included us in this month’s issue.
AlaraApothecary: onwards and upwards in Jesus’ name. The article is below. Thank you to all our incredible customers and supporters. Stockists, you know where we are…… Have a fabulous week.
Hi everyone, hope you’ve had a nice, restful weekend. The days are getting longer, there’s occasional sighting of a bright yellow ball in the sky and wretched Plan B restrictions are gone, hurrah, huzzah! Now people can exercise their own choice, hopefully without harrassment. If they feel safer wearing a mask, go for it. If they don’t want to wear a mask, have at it. It’s nice being treated as an adult once again.
As for the Boris must go shenanigans, that soon melted away. One minute it was ‘Sue Gray is bringing her report in HOURS and the govt must respond AT ONCE’. As soon as Boris uttered the magical, ‘No, I won’t resign’, it was game over. The last thing the nation needs is to put some other lunatic in place to turn everything upside down and lead us into yet another lockdown. And no, I cannot see any circumstance in which I would ever vote for Boris, but 2 days away from restrictions being lifted, he’s going nowhere. Now we’re being told the report might be weeks, months, years, and will not mention the words lockdown or party, but apart from that it’ll be totally transparent and comprehensive. You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
Meanwhile in Clownworld, NZ has instituted 24-day isolation for anyone who so much as has contact with someone who is covid-positive. Why so hasty? Why not 7 months, or even better, 4 years. If they haven’t died by then, they’re probably negative. But do a lateral flow test just to be sure. Number of Omicron cases at the time: 84. I’ve tried to find the data for Omicron deaths worldwide and it’s like searching for gold, even on the WHO website. All I can find is that there are omicron-related deaths in the UK, which is a bit vague – did they die from Omicron, or from faling out of a tree and testing positive for Omicron? Your guess is as good as mine. The lower the number of deaths from any cause, the better, that’s what I say. The sooner hospitals start booking in patients en masse for long-ovedue treatment, the better.
Apropos which, another bold prediction- the NHS mandate will be cancelled. Two reasons- 1) It’s illegal to mandate treatment that is undergoing clinical trials, and in the UK at least, the vaccines are being used under emergency approval. Even in the USA where the FDA licensed the Pfizer vaccine, the Supreme Court overruled the mandate,
and 2) the Coronavirus Act which allows for the mandate automatically lapses on March 25th. The deadline for the second vaccine is April 1st. The NHS cannot mandate the vaccine for any new employee from March 26th onward so what’s the point? However, the law allowing the mandate was passed on 6th Jan this year but the government can look forward to spending the next few years in court, arguing about whether the law holds when the Act allowing it has lapsed. Not to mention 100,000 whistleblowers who have nothing to lose. Strap in boys and girls, it could get interesting.
Won’t it be nice to stop wrangling and fighting one another, to stop the finger-pointing and anxiety and anger? I’m sure you’re all as exhausted as I am. But this is AlaraApothecary: we cheer you up. The freebies going out to all who purchased from us in 2021 are going out from this week. Thank you very much for your custom. If you haven’t received yours by end of Feb, feel free to send us a heavily censorious, condemnatory email with the purchase details. Have a fabulous, healthy week and I leave you with some old-world eye candy. Who doesn’t like an arch or two, plus a dome here and there? Exactly, no one.
